- University of Leicester study finds nearly 50 hidden relatives of Pterodactylus, the first pterosaur.

- Joined by its newly discovered relatives, Pterodactylus’s ‘family’ now encompasses tiny flaplings, a host of teenagers, some mums and dads and even a few large old seniors.

- Fluorescing bones stimulated by powerful LED UV torches, revealed invisible details of the head, hands and feet of Pterodactylus.

Which microbes thrive below us in darkness – in gold mines, in aquifers, in deep boreholes in the seafloor – and how do they compare to the microbiomes that envelop the Earth’s surfaces, on land and sea? The first global study to embrace this huge question, conducted at the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL), Woods Hole, reveals astonishingly high microbial diversity in some subsurface environments, pointing to vast, untapped, subsurface reservoirs of diversity for bioprospecting new compounds and medicinals, for understanding how cells adapt to extremely low-energy environments, and for illuminating the search for extraterrestrial life. Led by MBL Associate Scientist Emil Ruff, the study is published this week in Science Advances.